#237 Jason Flom with Stefon Morant

a weapon's charge. When Perezi asked Scott Lewis to take out a larger role in his business while he was away, Scott refused, a decision that altered the course of his end Stefan's lives. On October eleven, former New Haven, Connecticut alderman Ricardo Turner and his lover Lamont Fields were shot and killed while they laid in bed. Detective Vincent Rauci is believed to have pinned this double homicide on Scott Lewis. At Frank Parizi's request, Routchi pressured Stefan Morant implicate Scott

Lewis in a murder. He knew nothing about a false statement that Stefan recanted the very next day. However, his refusal to participate and Scott Lewis's rangful conviction sealed him to the same fate. Rauci coerced and incentivized another street dealer,

Oville Louise, sending Scott and Stepan away for seventy years. Eventually, it took an FBI investigation and the help of law students under Professor Brett Dignam to untangled Paris and Raunchie's web of lies, setting Stefan and Scott free after both had served over twenty years for a crime they didn't commit.

This it's wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Fasten your seatbelts and listen up, because the story of Stefan Morant includes a tangled web of a drug gang, a politician who turned up dead with his male lover in his bed, a corrupt detective who was in on the drug dealing as well and who ended up framing you, Stefan not to mention a false confession, an incentivized witness who we know now was mentally ill and who lied

through his teeth and changed his story multiple times, a mafia kingpin in case all that other stuff wasn't enough for you, And finally, a good judge who ironically was named Hate. I mean, you can't even make this stuff up. And our featured guest today is Stefan Marant, who lived through this nightmare. So Stefan, welcome to the show. Thank you.

So let's go back to the beginning. I mean, this is a Connecticut story and the backs are that on October eleventh, former New Haven alderman named Ricardo Turner and his lover Lamont Fields were shot and killed in their bed, and that's where our story starts. So back were a kid about, yes, and you were you know, you were hustling, right, yes, but you weren't killing anybody, absolutely not, and you certainly weren't killing Ricardo Turner and Lamont Fields. Okay, so how

does this start? Because you ended up getting into the cross hairs of a let's say, corrupt detective. I mean corrupt wived be two light of a word for this guy Rouci. I mean you weren't his only victim. There were tons. Yes, He's sort of like a character along the lines of that guy out in Brooklyn Um who framed so many of those people. Stefan set the stage for us as to this crazy cast of characters in the New Haven drug market at the time that this

double murder went down. Because this was a culmination of a lot of other factors. So can you give us an overview. There's a lot of different what you meet call I guess, organizations, guys um selling on different blocks. I was working with Scott and he was getting drugs from this guy by the name of Frank Parisi from out of the Fame hece Area. That's who Detective Rochi used to work for. I think the reason why me and Scott got framed it because Flank was about to

go to prison. I think he was sent this to eighteen years. So he wanted somebody to take over the organization, and he picked Scott to take over the organization, and Scott wanted to get out of the drug trade. So Scott said that he would not do it. And next thing you know, me and Scott to be in a frame for murder. So how did this cross your consciousness? When did you first become entangled in it? As a young man, I was living with my mother at the time.

I happened to call my mother in between seven thirty and eight o'clock, me and a couple of the guys where he's got to go to a script club. So I just just calling her not to tell I was going to script club, but just we're not doing that. So she tells me that if someone came by, it was a detective, a couple of them. So she said they wanted me to call. So I was like, I have no problem with calling them, So she gave me

the number. Happened to be Detective Racchi, and I think it was the technical Sweeney at the time, which came in the case later on. And uh, just probably by the reason why I'm sent before you to day because of Detective Sweeney. That's another part of the story. But um, so I happened to call him. He's asking me because I meet him somewhere, and I said, not a problem. So my court defended Mr Lewis and I and another gentleman.

We jumped into a vehicle. He dropped me off at a local gas station round corner for my mother's home, and um, he started asking me questions. I was hesitanting about answering anything because I don't know what's going on. He opened the back door and he thrusted me in. That was the beginning of a nightmare in my life. Um. They took me to the New Even Police Precinct, helped

me to the detective Burrow. How May there for hours at the time, brought out police reports, statements, use paper articles, and started asking me questions about doing anything about the double homicide. I said, I did not. Had you even heard about it in the neighborhood anything? No, I did not. So this is taking you totally off guard. And you didn't have a lawyer? No I did not. Did you read your right because you weren't a suspect yet? You know,

I wasn't a suspect, like I said. We were at the house drinking and smoking, so we was a little no nice, you know, before going to the script club. Instead of spending all the money in the script club, we just to get high before. So, um, we're in the police precinct for hours at the time. They start threatening with talking about all you could get the death penalty,

we'll put you in a man out of bond. So I'm looking around, like in a room such as this, one small little room, you know, how do I get out of here? Like if you help us, will help you. We don't want you anyway, we want Lewis So and Lewis was Scott Lewis correct? Scott Lewis was your friend, my brother, your brother not from another mother another okay, so and he had not been picked up yet. No, he wasn't right. So you're in there by yourself. Obviously

a scary situation going on. Un Plus you were already a little impair in the first place. That couldn't have helped. Although imagine this would kill your buzz real quick, but still you didn't have all your wits about you. Um. I mean, listen, I would like to go back in time to that day and and shake you by the collar and go, dude, call a lawyer, like, tell him you want a lawyer. That's all you had to do. And the question we have had to stop. But you

didn't know that because most people don't know. I was one of the reasons why we do the show, because we want to tell people what to do if they got a bit of end up in a situation like yours. So this question goes on and on and on. You don't even know. You probably have no sense of time at this point. Did you have a watch or anything.

I was probably got there, like I said, it was like eight I didn't get out of there toil like probably like five six hours later after if they gave me all this information, it was recording me, of course, and it kept stopping the take. That's not how we wanted. We need you to write the statement correctly, stopping the tape starting stopping the take. After they felt all this information, so I said, I felt in my best interest on it with him to get out of here is to

do what they want me to do. Because the key thing for me was what they said was you, after you write this, you gotta come back. So now I see a way out, and see a way out before because they weren't give me the way. I was like, listen, I don't know anything about the crime. I need to leave it, let me go. And it was not letting me go, which is actually against the law as well.

They had to let you go if you have to be let go, like I mean, considering they were willing to break so many other rules, they certainly weren't going to abide by that one either. So so you give a statement, which is a statement that they had basically fed your giving details of the crime that you had no idea about. Correct, but that we're accurate presumably if they fed them to you. Yes, And then of course stopping and starting the tape. I mean, that's right out

of a TV show as well. An amateur scriptwriter would put that in there, you know. And so they end up getting what they want. Did they then arrest you or did they send you home? No, they actually let me go. That's crazy. Let me They told me to come back because I just signed a statement. So my god mother name is Emma Jones. She was a lawyer at the time, and I immediately went to her home. Um, when I got there, it was like three four in

the morning. She looked at me, and I looked at her, and I told her what I was coming from, and she said, you did not say anything right, And I just put my head down and she said, first thing in the morning, we're going to get representation. And my cousin, Detective Planto, was my father's first cousin. He called my mother and he knew because at the time of the crime, when it actually happened, I wasn't even living here. I was living in South Carolina, actually going back and forth

from South Carolina North Carolina. So he was aware that I didn't live here at the time, so he called my mother. I didn't know where we camp meant, so he's like, do you have a statement down here? Tell Steflon come down here. He can't the statement. We know that he wasn't here. He knew he wasn't here. So I went back to the detective place with my mother. A detective came out and he was brought the statement

off of me to sign it. I heard over the dispatch because I actually supposed to meet my cousin over there, which we detective plant to and it was disregard. We got this. So the detective came out, He's like, you have to sign this or I'm not signing anything. I said, that's bullshit. I'm not signing it. I'm not signing it because it's a lie. It's false information, it's not true. Like what if you don't sign this, we could charge of conspiracy, and I mean my mother just she grabbed

a pocket book and we walked out the door. Okay, so this is a bizarre story. In the number of levels. One is that they let you go in the first place instead of making you sign a statement right after you had false to confessed. That's I've never heard that one before. There must have been some reason for it, but I don't know what it was. By now, this is the next day talking about going back to the police station. It was a couple of days later. By now you knew the details of the crime. You knew

this was a double murder. You know, the super serious situation, right. Um probably getting extra attention because of the fact that one of the dead guys, Ricardo Turner, was a former alderman. Right, so there was probably a sure to solve this crime. Um. So now, in these three days that had passed, did you touch base with Scott Lewis? Did you let him know what's going on? Yes? I called him actually probably

the next day, and I told him about it. So he actually called the police priesting and called the detective himself, and I went down there and spoke to him. I don't know what the details of the conversation were, but he went down there himself. So what happens next? How does it progress from here to where you end up getting convicted and serving almost half your life in prison? So what was I doing prior to being convicted? So after leaving the police precinct, I went on with my life.

I was I was working. I was working at a piece of place, being a delivery guy. And it detected Rachi. He's like used to follow me everywhere I moved back and forth, you know, from North Carolina, South Carolina. I moved back down there with me and my kids mother. I formally got arrested two years later, so this is the crime happened. I got arrested her and February nineteen my kids mother, Christie Sobing, she was pregnant with my sons and we were actually living in favor of North Carolina.

Her mother and father came to pick her up in December of n um. She was complaining because I was, of course still in the drug trade. I was going back and forth from North Carolina, South Carolina, trying to make ends meet something a little bit of drugs. So I called her in. Happened to be February, right, my sons was born on Valentine's Day, twins one of the great yeah, and one of the greatest days in my life. Of course, it was definitely a blessing. I'm like, I

got to get back to Connecticut, right. I didn't have no warrant, didn't have no nothing. The last time I heard from the detectives when I seen them following me around in the piece of place in other various places like nightclubs and stuff like that. So I didn't see him anymore because I went back down south. So when I get here from my mother's home she lives in New Haven, happened to see a K car, you know, police detective car. I just knew, you know, what the

detective car looked like. So I've seen him, and I just went the opposite way. So I happened to park in a car in the communal lot in Derby, Connecticut, and me and my friend named his name is robbed. After seeing my boys, I was on my way going back to South Carolina. So I was going to pick my car up at the communal lot, and I've seen my left tire was flat and it looked crazy. I

just felt something. And then I've seen a guy like in the Seville with a newspaper up on his face, like nobody reads the newspaper like that, something's not right. So anyway, I get out of the car. As soon as I get out of the car, police come from everywhere. It's like the scene out of a movie. My sons was in the back, my my name was in the back. I was in the front. I got out the detectives. I was like, they asked me what was my name?

Myself of course my name and stoff with my random but I said, you guys, I got kids in the car, and you put your guns down. It was like I was in control of the situation, but I wasn't because they put their guns down. I told him my name and they're like, oh, you have an arrest want for the homicide. Like what now, I'm arrested for the homicide. Like I believe if I would have never came back to Connecticut because what they were doing, they was about

to take Scott the trial. So what they did was rested me so they could put pressure on me so I have become and testify against Mr Lewis. And that's just that how you say. They try to put division between both of us, and it didn't work. We both ended up, of course getting convicted. I never testified on them because I'm not testifying to a lie. But I ended up getting arrested that day. Detective RATCHI was the detective that came him and another detective and picked me

up from the Orange precinct. I said, he him this bull crap again. So he's like, all we want you to do is tell us that Mr Lewis committed his crime. You could go home, this warrant could go away. I'm like, listen, man, what's my bond? I just need to know my bond, That's all I wanna know. I ended up giving my phone call. I called my mother. She wasn't home, so I called my aunt. Told my aunt about it, and she called my mother let her know. And I was in jail for like a few months, and then my

mother she bonded me out. She put her home up in my state out for an addition to two years, and then I went to trial. The whole thing is really surreal. I mean for a lot of reasons, but also because of in particular because of the elapsed time, right because I feel like you're listening to you talking about it now, it seems like it was kind of

in the tail life. You were going out your life, You're raising your family, trying to make hims meet, doing or whatever you can, a little of this, a little legitimate stuff, some other stuff. But you weren't killing anybody. You weren't even hurting anybody. They had another sort of nefarious weapon in their arsenal, which was this and another another name that could only come out of a fictional account, right, this guy Oville Ruise like Oville? Are you getting me

with this name? Not Orville Oville like evil? And Oval Ruise gave well, let's call it a co werst eyewitness account. He was incentivized, he was coerced, they were using the carrot and the stick. He was promised leniency, and according to Ruise, he came up with this story. I imagine the first time you heard about this was that trial. Did you know this Ruise guy? Yes, I knew of him well when we sold drugs. He was he sused to sell drugs. We used drugs. Yes, we wasn't the

best of friends, but I know he was. So Ruise came up with a pretty interesting story. He said that this alderman, the former alderman, Ricardo Turner, was storing drugs and money for Louis, your co defendant for his operation in the second four apartment that he lived in, and that he also owed Louis money. So, according to Oval, Ruise,

I love saying that name over and over again. On October tenth and eleventh, he claimed that you and Lewis discussed the idea that Turner might take the money and run, and therefore Ruise rode with you guys to turn his apartment away in the car while you Again this is his account, his false account, but his account he claimed that, armed with a three fifty seven and a thirty eight, that you guys forced your way into Turner's apartment, murdered he and Fields in their bed, then took the money

and the coke got in the getaway car. Now this would all be a little bit more believable if not for the fact that he was promised lenien. See if he admitted to being a getaway driver. And you know, he probably didn't even come up with this story. They probably came up with and gave it to him. But whatever, Um, you know, at the time, I'm be going to trial this young kid. What a background in mental health issues.

My lawyer at the time subpoena in his records, and this guy was talking by he see red bean, Um, he see different visions. He's on hollid doll and various drugs for his mental health. So he was not only thrown and thrusted and given leniency for giving false testimony, but he also was a mental health patient. You know, I don't even understand how to jury believe this guy. So now they had you, guys, they had this guy, they had a false confession. You had no shot at trial.

So you go to trial. You're tried separately from Lewis. Yes, I have four counts. First, I have five counts, one count of conspiracy. They dropped that to the beginning of the trial too. Counts eight into have been in and two counts of felony murder. So when the jury came back in, did you have any hope that they would come to the right answer? He still believed even after everything that happens, you still believe the justice were gonna win. Out of course I did have hope because I didn't

do it. So, okay, so take us to that moment. So the jury comes in and they read the charges in order, right, So you've already had the one charge dropped. Now you have the first two charges and they go not guilty. So after that second not guilty, you're You're like, I'm going home, Yes, I mean, and then they dropped a bomb on you, and then a literal almost fell over.

Literally I rocked back and to catch myself, and then I looked at the Jerry person, and he like, he shook his head, like, yeah, we convicted you, and then he read it off again. I looked in his eyes again,

and then he put his head down. This episode is underwritten by A i G, a leading global insurance company, and by Accenture, a global professional services company with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security, working to reform the criminal justice system as a key pillar of the A i G pro Bono Program, which provides free legal services and other support to many nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. As part of Accenture's commitment to racial and

civil justice. Accenture's Legal Access Program provides pro bono legal services in partnership with more than forty organizations, bringing meaningful change to people and communities worldwide. The prosecutor, which is, he was just as corrupt as the detective in my eyes. My son's again, he was twins. They were two year old at the time, and um, I didn't see my sons in a while, you know, So I didn't bring me the court. I don't even know I was going

to court. The prosecutor rising fruit basket. He puts them on the table, so my mother's there. I didn't know, my mother's gonna be there and my sons are there. So he says to me, you missed this. Of course? What kind of questions that? Of course I missed my kids, he says, So what you gotta do about it? I said, listen, I told you before, I don't know nothing about this. I'm the same way. I'm looking at my son's right here.

Mr Lewis has kids as well. So I'm gonna just take myself and say, okay, I'm gonna lie on the man and take myself out of prison and put him in prison. Possibly I can't do that. I just can't do that. Did he actually tell you that he was willing to give you a deal if you would test the pike against Lewis? Or he would just assume that that's what he told me. And what was the deal they offered you? He said we would work it out.

He didn't tell me, well, I'm gonna take thirty five I got seventy years now, thirty five years running wile, which means do this thirty five years and start all over again. So what can you offer me? You can't offer me. No, you couldn't. He couldn't offer me a day because I'm not gonna see him lying the man for something that I didn't do and he didn't do.

It's just not gonna happen. Then that speaks to your character too, because I think there's you know, no again, no one knows how you would hell anyone would deal with the situation like the one that you were in. But you handled it, I mean with courage and um, you know, you did the right thing at extreme cost to yourself. So now you're sentenced to seventy years and

you get taken to prison. One of the reasons I do this work and I'm so obsessed and committed to it, have been from my whole adult life and will be for the rest of my adult life, however long that may be. It's because of people like you. Um, honestly in awe that people like yourself can go through what you went through and come out with this and I picked it up when we've met before. Is one of the reasons I want to have you on the show, because you're such a positive guy and you're such a

sort of I mean to meet you. No one would ever know that you had been through anything like this, much less this totally insane ordeal. So how did you survive prison? Was it as bad as what you were expecting? Was it as bad as what people think it is? Well? For me, um, I have a Christian background, right, My grandmother was she just was a faith driven woman. My mother, you know, my father should take me to church all

the time. Actually, the day I got convicted June eighth, that night when they threw me and told me, they reminded me, how was it like like the whole building on top of me, like, and I didn't know how it was gonna get it off of me. So they put me in the bullpen. There was nobody down there, and I'm looking around and I had a suit on, so in the tie. So I shifted my tie from the left to the right, and I'm like, yeo, how did I get here? How did this happen to me?

So I was about to cry, of course, I'm like and so literally a voice came over me and said, son, you're gonna be all right. You know. I got down on my knees in that bullpen and I prayed, and that was my piece. That was my sinct, you guys, my sanity. That's what brought me through, just not my faith alone, but My family was there for me. They're still there for me. My big brother Frank, my brother julian Um he passed away at Loopus a year before

I came home. He was my great to support, my brother leand and my mother Linda, or host of family and friends. I mean, you know, it's crazy in prison because some people don't even know what the visiting room look like. I just had a great support my wife Rangely the snow. I'm telling you, if it was six ft of snow and the rose is clear, she was there, you know, And and that says a lot for her, you know. But again, I had a lot of family there for me. My family was there, they're still there

for me. And again my faith kept me whole. You know. I actually go to school right now, to a Bible institute to become a minister. It's not easy. I go through a lot of ups and downs because of the incarceration I call it today, because of they thrusted me into a cage. I'm that dog that's running away from the cage. Never to go back to that cage again. I want to go back there, but I want to go back there for the right reasons. As far as if I could inspire and encourage somebody to be like, listen,

there is hope. These guys that see me today. When I was actually incarcerated, when I don't call it incarcerated again, when I was strutted into that cage, they just literally like start crying, like, yeah, you know you believed like you believed you was coming home when you was going home and you're here. Sometimes of course it gives rough sometime, you know, but what do you do with the situation when it happens to you? Do you sit down weeping crowd and you get up a stand to all, because

that's what they want you to do. They want you to be like, Okay, we're gonna take this person, thrust them in the cage, and we want them to become an animal. I did the total opposite. I mean, how did you get out? And these are the things I want to get to here because you were there for twenty years, twenty one years and maximum security. Obviously it's

felony murder. I believe that my guy made away, you know, to me, of course legal things took place, but people came back, Like I mentioned to you earlier, detected Sweeney. He was a great part in this case. He came back after he was in Bosnia in nine he happened

to see my case. I was going back for a petition for new trial and um I had the lawyer by the name of Michael Fitzpatrick at the time, and he said, I got some good evidence that's coming and that was It took another sixteen more years for the court to even listen to him. And this is the

supervisor of detective Racchi. That's telling you that the two men that you have imprisoned, if you're going by the information that was gathered by Detective Racchi and that informat that you had to testify in, these guys absolutely not swing. He came to testify to that. That's so crazy. I'm getting the chills now thinking about it, because here you have a senior official in law enforcement who is coming forward with no motivation. What could his motivation possibly be

other than the truth? And they're going, yeah, we're good, like yeah, I mean, he's he's one of the heroes in this story, right, without a doubt. Scott Lewis wrote a letter to the FBI as well about Rachi. They looked into it, and every time they did they would find that things were not as he said they were, but as you guys said they were. They found that Rauchi not only framed you and Lewis, but that he

framed a number of other people. I don't think we'll ever know how many, because we know when these guys do it, like Scarcella in Brooklyn, they just keep doing it and doing it and doing it as long as they get away with it, which is why it's so important that we tell these stories. And they even brought him back Rouchi, they brought him back to New Haven

to question him, but they never charged him. They they ended up charging him with his ridiculous but they charged him for misbuilding his overtime hours and assaulting his wife, which is a serious crime in my view. And yet he received two years probation. Um, so he was dealing drugs, framing people for murder, assaulting his wife, and uh, he gets two years of probation and you end up with

seventy years for a crime you didn't commit. Another hero in this story, and it's it's interesting because it's a New Haven story. And along comes a Yale law professor named Brett Dignam and Richard Emmanuel and a whole bunch of law students right coming in like the cavalry, all from Yale. And that's a pretty good group to have on your side because at Yale they don't mess around. There's no question that you have an incredible amount of brain power and energy to vote it to your case.

How did they get involved? How they find out about it? They got involved in Scott case actually two thousand and nine and um Brett moved from them. She was a law professor at Yale and then she moved to Columbia and then they just the students. A lot of the students just went along with her, or she just had some more Columbian students. I'm not really sure of the whole procedure how it went down, but they played a

big role in this getting the conviction overturn. And finally a good judge who ironically was named Hate the judge Hate huh with a name but a loving guy. Yeah, Judge Charles Hate the U S District Judge Charles Hate Jr. Your team want a ruling in front of Judge Hate that the prosecution had failed to tell the defense and does his heavy get ready that the key witness Oval Louise had repeatedly denied having any knowledge of the murders. All of a sudden, he had a big memory recall

after he was offered a deal. But it's important to recognize that he was at least initially telling the truth. Doesn't excuse his behavior whatsoever, but it does highlight the lengths that they were willing to go to to get a conviction. And let us not forget that, of course, in your case, like in so many other moldli conviction cases, like whoever it was that went in cold bloodedly gunned these two guys down? But there was one guy, two

guys women. We don't know who it was, right, I don't know if you took this day know who was I don't know who it is. I mean, they have the suspects that they say they have, um, but I don't know if they pushed forward to try to arrest anybody. I mean, I don't wish nothing bad on anybody, but whether it's one into is your two or three individuals still out there? So now, what about our public exactly?

Let's just say it's not unlikely that whoever it was I committed this crime went on to commit other terrible crimes while you guys were serving the time for them. So how did you end up getting out? Actually, Mr Lewis, he was releasing February March and two thousand and fourteen. On the bracelet. Judge Hate ordered that they release him within ninety days. I think of after the conviction was overturning. Then they had to go to the second Circuit court

and then all the charges was dropped. I think he got exonerated in two thousand sixteen, if I'm not mistaken. Unlike myself, Mr Lewis had a dream team and I had a team that wasn't fighting for me at all. So pushed forward to a year later. The attorney said he he spoke with the district attorney and said, oh, I think that Um, I could talk to him, to talk to him about what like, why now you're not found the motion for me to get out of prison? Um,

because you know Mr Lewis cases different. I said, what you mean, what do you mean different? We went to we just went to trial differently. The evidence is the same, we just went to trial at different times. I want to be released from prison. I said, how long more do you think this is gonna take? He said it might take another three years. What this man is out of prison? You're telling me I still got a wait

in additional three years to be released from prison. He was like, yeah, So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go talk because I'm friends with the district attorney. So I'm gonna go down there and see if he had just say, see what can happened? I think that was a Tuesday. So he came back the very next day. He's like, I got good news from You're going home. The district attorney said, we give you time, sir, but you have the cop out. I'm thinking now, my little brother,

he just passed away. Lopus. I lost my grandfather. I lost my father, I lost the host of a lot of friends. My mother's getting older, my children are older. You know they did when you come home. I have a wife now that married me for I don't know why in prison in two thousand and nine. What do I do between the rock and hard place? Do I sit here and say, listen, I want to fight for my name to be clear for another three years. There's

nothing guaranteed in the judicial system. They already failed me once, So what do I do. I've always heard that if you can fight better from the outside and the inside. I need to get out. I need to get out of here. So I went with the terms in the agreement. I mean ignorant, of course, of the repercussions of still fighting for my conviction, because I still have a conviction. Mr. Lords, as I told you a couple of minutes ago, is exonerated,

same evidence, just different trial. He's desonerated. I'm struggling. You know, what do you do? You know, I gotta survive, though, you know, I'm thankful that I'm able to be able to stand on my two feet. I'm able to to go to a job and to go and make a difference something I don't know if you know, but I work at a half way house. You know, it's a part of the frectional facility. Like my grandmother was a caregiver,

so I guess I'm following the footsteps of her. I also just took on another job working with the mental health I work at half and Healthcare. Now. It's not a lot of money, but it's getting me and my wife. By me and my lawyer. Right now, we're trying to put together a pardon to try to see if that the state of Connecticut, were pardon me and use circumstances because I can't get jobs that's paid as well because

I have a conviction of my record. You know, I'm actually like getting half to pay, you know, for somebody didn't do and I'm still suffering. Sometimes I'll be like, yo, why, But then at the end of the day, why not. I'm not the first person that happened to him, won't be the last person that happens to so Stefan. Last time we spoke, you were still fighting for your innocence

to be recognized. You were out here struggling to get by on what jobs you could get with murder conviction hanging over your head until you and your attorney, Ken Rosenthal, we're finally able to get a hearing in July, just a short time ago, for an absolute pardon, which would finally expunge your record of having ever been convicted of a crime. And you finally received your absolute part and

certificate just a few months later. When you found out, what was that moment, Like a bunch of bricks, everything just fell off my shoulders. It was like I'm free, you know. It was like for a long time I've been accused of something that I did not do, and now it felt like a release. You know, I'm free. I mean, I'm finally free. Words can't even sum it up right now. I'm ready to just to tear up. I think I was telling you earlier this year that

they called me in for Jerry Dooty. So they called you imagine that freshly minted usnoie, right, they called you for Jerry Dooty to sub been really kind of poetic about that. The same court that convicted me was calling me off a jury duty. It didn't pick me for the jury, but they called me in for jury duty. I felt, I felt honored, I felt like a human being.

I felt a sense of release. Or even though I probably couldn't serve in the jury because I was still a convicted felon at the time, but it would just honor for the jury pool to even call me. Yeah, I can't imagine. And let's face it, most people do everything they can to avoid jury duty. Which I'm going to talk directly to our audience here. Please take what you've learned here and serve on a jury every chance

you get. Okay, it is an honor and it is a duty, and it is an opportunity for each of us to help prevent what happened to step On and to every other one of the axondres that we've covered in these twelve seasons of wrongful conviction. We have the opportunity to prevent that from happening to other people. But

it starts with serving on a jury. So yeah, I can see how you know, after being exiled from the rest of society, that even jury duty could feel like the sort of a warm welcome, like almost like a blessing. And you deserve so much more than that. I mean, now you're going to be eligible for compensation, which is great, but no amount of money will ever be able to replace what they took from you two decades of time.

And speaking of that, I hope that on top of the struggle of being out here, living with a conviction on your record, having to check that box on job applications, working four jobs, I hope that you've been able to make up for lost time with your loved ones. Well, I'm fortunate and it's been blessed that me and my wife, Kimberly Morant, purchased a home. Great woman, she's my angel, she is a ride die, She's somebody that whole at a at a high regard. That man, I'm getting tongue

twisted right now, just thinking who would do that? I mean, who would just come into somebody's life and just believe in the innocent. She believed in me, She believed that I was innocent. Other than that, she says, she would never have stayed. She became my wife in two thousand nine while in prison. Between me and her, we have seven children, Twilight, Stefan, Mia, Jailer, Prince Christian, and Julian. We have grandchildren now, stuff on the third Tiland, Marquise, Madison, Demi,

and Juliana. And just knowing that I wasn't here for my children, but they got him here for my grandchildren. Hope that we could develop a relationship. That man, it's hard because they have a life. We have a life. Hopefully it gets better. I want to be there more because the relationship it's not what it should be. I mean, my children tell me every time they thought that it would be different, they thought it would make us closer.

When you came home. My daughter always says that she spoke to me it seemed like more when I was able to call it from them, fifteen minutes, and that to me is sad for me to just hear that from her. I mean, and I just pray that one day that we all could just just find time from one another. Because now again again you heard me earlier, I work for a job, so it's like I'm always trying to stay busy, stay busy, so I'm always tagged with a place that I am, so they can never

do that to me again. Yeah, it's crazy, step On, and it's powerful to hear you say it. But you're not the first guy I've heard say that or something like it. I mean, some guys will say that they will get receipts anywhere they can every time they can't get a receipt for a pack of gum anything. I just looked at my draw my drawers full of everywhere I go, they you want to see, Yeah, I need that absolutely location. Like on my phone, I put, yeah,

do you want people to know you location? And that's sad because you want a private life, but you can't have a private life because you're afraid that's something like this happened to you again. Yeah, I mean that is a sad part of reality. And know it's a continuing toll of the damage that they did. But I gotta say, everyone on the Wrongful Conviction team is really like so so happy for you now and with your new clean record. I guess all I can say is, may your reputation

never be smeared and impugned again. And now we come to my favorite part of the show, which of course is called closing arguments, And with the incredible, magnificent news of your absolute pardon, this will be a brand new closing argument from the one we did with you back in two thousand nine. Honestly, I can't wait to hear this one. So first I want to thank you against the fan for sharing with us your incredible courage, your journey,

your your spirit, all of it. And now I'm going to turn my microphone off, keep my headphones on, kick back in my chair, and just listen to anything you feel you want to say. For me. Close arguments would be that to recognize my mother have been there from the beginning, it's still there now, my little brother Leander, my big brother Frank, my wife of course, my mother in law, father in law, my children I named them earlier, for us to just have a better relationship and building

on this. I mean, this is cause so much grief and so much pain in my life, but I just want to make it better. But we have to do it together, not you know, as individuals, sometimes we get selfish and think that we gotta put off things, but sometimes take that minute, take that hour out in that second, because nothing it's promised to you. I mean, every day is a blessing just to be on this earth. We know what we just went through in this last couple

of years with this COVID situation. I just just pray that uh this happened for me, and I hope that everybody that's unjustly and crossray to get their day in court, that they're able to come and do the same thing I'm doing right now with this podcast and of this story amongst the world that uh who, this is the day that the Lord has made and let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad there. And that's one of my

favorite sayings. And I'm so grateful to God that I know that that's the only reason why I stand before you today and I sit here and I'm able to be here. And again, thank you to Jason Flam and thank you to Connor for allowing me just to be here, just to share the story and hope that it can help somebody see something or hear something, or some people just do the right thing. Just to know that you don't have to lie on somebody in order to change your life, for to save your life, because it's no

good got to come out of that. If you do something wrong, it's some money. Believe me. Let's go come back on your teenfold with that. Let's I have a blessed day. Thank you, Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction. I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Justin Golden, Jeff Claver, and Kevin Wardis with research by Lila Robinson. The music in this production was supplied by three time

OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast, and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at Lava for Good. On all three platforms. You can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason flop ravul Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts and association with Signal Company Number one